Netanyahu drawing stumps mentalist Lior Suchard

PM had apparently agreed to make a sketch on stage, but then showed up with the doodle already in his pocket

Israeli mentalist Lior Suchard, who has wowed audiences around the world with his supposed mind-reading abilities, may have finally met his match this week in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Suchard was a guest at an event for foreign press in Jerusalem Wednesday night, organized by the Government Press Office. After Suchard successfully guessed several private details of attendants, Netanyahu took the stage, and then, apparently, went off script.

Suchard had reportedly agreed with organizers that the prime minister would make a drawing on stage, and the mentalist would guess it — a trick he has performed in the past.

However, Netanyahu surprised Suchard by announcing that he had prepared the drawing — 10 minutes earlier — and invited him to guess it. “I want to challenge him,” he said. “There’s no way you could have seen this.

“You’re in trouble,” he quipped.

A flummoxed Suchard seemed to attempt to buy time, and returned to the name of an audience member’s first girlfriend, to which the premier responded, “Don’t run away.”

The performer then made his best attempt at guessing what Netanyahu had drawn, but when the Israeli leader eventually displayed his sketch of the Jewish menorah with the words “Am Yisrael Chai” underneath, Suchard admitted he was “completely off.”

A pleased Netanyahu joked, “This was an Israeli deception campaign.”

Suchard himself was apparently far less pleased. According to Hebrew media reports, he later complained to organizers that Netanyahu had not lived up to agreements to perform the drawing live.

“It doesn’t work if the other side doesn’t want it to work,” he told Hadashot TV news.

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